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Emerging filmmaker Dashiell Meier sets out to discover why so many people think Down syndrome is bad. With a crew of disabled filmmakers, he interviews historians, visits doctors, and meets advocates to discover the history of his disability. When he visits an asylum where he might have lived if born a generation earlier, he confronts how racism and eugenics have led to modern science’s focus on the elimination of Down syndrome. Because for Dashiell, having Trisomy 21/Down syndrome is a gift.
We are the canary in the eugenics coal mine.
The Film
Worthy is a film within a film. Dashiell will direct a crew of disabled people with a second crew recording them making the documentary. As Dashiell confronts the history of his disability, he struggles to make sense of the prejudice against him.
Why do we see Down syndrome as something bad?
Dashiell's Mission
Through this documentary, I want to address the fact that disability doesn’t define us. There are people who see their disability as a burden and don’t like themselves because of that. I want to tell those people that it’s OK to just be yourself. By acknowledging the stereotypes of Down syndrome and disability in general, we can gain an understanding of what it means to be ourselves as a first step of ending these myths. This is the first step that we need to take. We need to learn about our terrible past. How do we move on from that to live in a better world where we can start over?